The Rinaldi Bargain

Chapter Five

THE heavy oak door clicked shut behind Silas. Snow stood exactly where he left her, chest heaving fast and uneven.

Her fingers still burned where they had fisted his shirt. Her lips still throbbed from that deliberate, claiming kiss that had stolen every sharp word right out of her throat.

She hated him.

She told herself that over and over until the thought rang hollow around the edges. Hating him took so much energy she barely had anything left for herself.

Silas kept his distance for days after that. Not far enough to feel truly alone, but far enough to let her breathe. He told Lorenzo straight out that she answered to no one but him inside these walls.

She could go anywhere she wanted. She could change anything she pleased. She ran this house as its rightful lady. The matriarch.

Every order she gave carried the same weight as his own. Guards bowed their heads. Staff jumped when she spoke. It felt strange and heady and more than a little dangerous all at once.

At first, she paced the halls like a finer breed of prisoner. She rearranged furniture just to prove she could. She changed menus and picked new linens and told gruff silent guards exactly where they could stand.

It felt good for a little while. Then it felt empty. Then boredom settled in heavy and dull. She had all the freedom these stone walls could offer and nowhere meaningful to go.

One crisp bright morning, she found herself wandering the lower terraces. Wide empty beds of dry earth sat baking in the sun, choked with stubborn weeds and wild tangled grass.

No one had tended them in years. They looked forgotten. Just like so much else up here.

Snow found a pair of old gloves and simple tools stored away. She rolled up her sleeves and got to work. She cleared stones and pulled weeds and turned hard soil until her shoulders ached and her nails grew dark with dirt.

She sent Lorenzo down the mountain for seeds and bulbs and young rose saplings in every shade she loved. He came back loaded down without a single question or complaint.

Word traveled fast in a house this size. It traveled faster still when it concerned the lady Silas Rinaldi had brought home.

Silas found her there three days later, kneeling in soft earth, covered head to toe in dust and grime. Her hair slipped loose from its pins to stick in tangled strings against her neck. Her dress was smudged and stained beyond saving.

She hummed something soft while she patted fresh dirt around a pale bloom, completely unaware she had company until his voice drifted over dry as old bone.

“Are you digging for treasure or trying to bury the gardener?”

Snow jumped hard and nearly crushed the plant right under her palm. She spun around wiping dirt onto her skirt uselessly.

Silas leaned against a stone wall watching her with that familiar half-lidded mocking look that seemed permanently glued to his face. He looked every bit the sharp suited lord of this dark fortress while she looked like she had wrestled the mountain itself and lost.

“Gardening,” she told him shortly, shoving hair out of her eyes. “You have eyes. Use them.”

“I did wonder,” he pushed off the wall and strolled closer, stepping carefully around her neat rows like they held hidden landmines. “I thought maybe we were under attack by giant moles. Or perhaps you plan to grow weapons next. Exploding daisies? Poisoned tulips?”

“Very funny,” she deadpanned and turned back to her work though her mouth twitched with annoyance. “They are flowers, Silas. Pretty harmless flowers.”

“Nothing is harmless in my house, sweetheart,” he said nodding toward her dark messy hands with exaggerated distaste. “And you are ruining that dress.”

“It is dirt,” she tossed back, dropping another bulb into the hole she dug. “It washes off. Unlike blood, apparently.”

Silas actually laughed a low and rough sound that suited him far better than it should. “Touché. Still. I expected you to demand a new wing or a private library or piles of silk. Not mud under your fingernails.”

“I am bored,” she admitted. “And your grounds are terrible. Everything here is stone and shadow and silence. It needs color. It needs life.”

“Life is messy,” he observed, kicking a loose pebble aside. “Usually ends up dead around me sooner or later.”

“Not these,” she said with quiet stubborn certainty. “I will make sure of it.”

He watched her for a long quiet moment, sarcasm softening around the edges into something she could not quite name. “Go ahead then. Plant the whole damn mountain if it keeps you from plotting my murder in your spare time. Just try not to poison the soil. I have enough problems already.”

“I will try my very best not to,” she promised, overly sweet. “You are welcome by the way.”

“Charming,” he muttered though the corner of his mouth stayed tilted up. “Do not come crying to me when bugs eat your precious blossoms.”

“Go back to your meetings, Silas. You are ruining my soil’s reputation.”

He left with one last shake of his head and another dry remark about her turning his fortress into a florist shop. Snow smiled to herself as he walked away. It felt small and silly and entirely hers.

Days turned into weeks. Her garden grew. Green shoots pushed through the dark soil, brave and bright. She took charge inside too. She set schedules and smoothed ruffled feathers and turned cold echoing rooms into spaces that actually felt lived in.

Staff who had feared the silence for years began to relax. She was their lady now. Firm but fair. Exactly what this house had lacked for far too long.

Silas watched it all unfold with small amount of amusement. He would wander in from long grueling days looking worn and sharp only to find her arguing with the cook or moving heavy vases or covered once again in fresh mud.

He teased her endlessly about it. He called her his dirt covered queen and his terrifying domestic tyrant and half a dozen of other names laced through with biting affection she tried very hard to ignore.

“You realize,” he drawled one evening, watching her scrub her hands raw at the kitchen sink long after everyone else had gone to bed. “You run this place better than I run my entire operation. Scary thought, really.”

“I have applicable skills,” she shot back not looking up. “Something you clearly skipped in school.”

“I skipped plenty of things,” he agreed, leaning against the doorway “Mostly boring nonsense like feelings and flowers and proper bedtime hours.”

“Explains everything.”

“Explains exactly why I need someone like you around then does it not?”

The question hung there softer than usual. She paused mid scrub, suddenly very aware of how close he stood. Aware of the easy way things shifted between them now. Less snapping. Less fighting. Something quieter growing up right alongside her blooms.

“I am still your prisoner, Silas,” she reminded him quiet but firm. “Gardening does not change that.”

“Technically, you are the boss of the prison,” he countered pushing off the frame to step closer. “Makes you the warden. Try not to fire yourself.”

“I hate your jokes.”

“No you do not,” he said, low, sure and smug all at once. “You just hate that you laugh at them.”

He was right. And she hated that most of all.

Evenings brought them back together again in that shared room they both still occupied. He never pushed for more than he had. He watched over her more than he bothered her.

Yet things had shifted deep down. She was no longer just the stolen bride dragged up the mountain kicking and screaming. She was part of the bones of this place now.

Silas trusted her with the house. He handed her the keys and the power and the title without hesitation. He told anyone who dared question her authority exactly one thing. She decides. She commands.

She is Mrs. Rinaldi.

Snow felt that weight settle on her shoulders day by day. Heavy but warm.

She organized repairs and tended her growing garden and learned the names and faces of everyone who lived and worked within these walls. She made this cold fortress her own stubborn bright mark.

And slowly against every rule she had told herself to keep, she began to understand exactly what it meant to stand beside a man like Silas.

It meant strength. It meant choices. It meant learning which battles to fight and which ones to let bloom wild. It also meant Silas leaning in the doorways watching her work with that knowing glint in his dark eyes, waiting to mock her the moment she messed up.

“You know,” he found her out among her roses again one afternoon, fresh blooms just starting to show color. “If you keep this up, people will start thinking you actually like it here.”

“Like is a very strong word,” she replied snipping a dead stem with careful precision. “Tolerate is better. Barely.”

“Barely is better than most get,” he said, losing the sarcasm for a heartbeat. “You do this house good, Snow. Better than it deserves.”

She looked up then meeting his gaze straight on, dirt smudged cheek and all. “You still deserve absolutely none of it, Silas.”

“Probably not,” he agreed easy and honest but pain lingered in his eyes. “Probably not. Lucky for me you like difficult projects then.”